The Dying Embers: Chapter 4

Chapter Four: The Ending of All

For years no one knew what had happened to Cassidy Todd. His family offered to pay money for someone, anyone to find him. Only Zara knew what had happened and she alone knew where the body was hidden. Pain tore at her every waking moment, every night she couldn't sleep because of her nightmares. She became thinner and thinner, denying herself food. Her mind was being eaten away with the knowledge that she had destroyed the one thing she had loved.

She would follow the paths through the woods to the place where she had placed Cass, talking to him and driving herself insane with her memories. Even Jordan left her alone now, not even he derived pleasure from kicking a dog when it was down.

Then, one night as she lay in her bed, she heard the sweet laughter of Cassidy. She could hear him calling to her, singing to her. Teasing her into moving. She followed the sound to the edge of the creek bed. There she saw Cassidy's sister, Anna Sophia, the female version of her brother. She stood on the other side of the creek, dancing in the soft light of the stars.

"Zara, dance with me!" she called, her willowy spirit floating and twisting in the savage wind.

"No, no. Please, don't do this to me." Zara mumbled under her breath. Tears began to fall. Then she saw Anna Sophia moving across the creek, as if she was walking atop the water. Eyes wide in terror, Zara began to move backwards, staring at Anna Sophia. Anna's mouth was dripping with blood, her ghostly blonde hair floating about her face. Anna had died a year before her brother, murdered by her lover.

Zara's soul quaked at the beauty of the ghost girl. She longed to be like the apparition before her, she was tired of her guilty insanity. Her soul had been murdered by her own hands, by her own faults and failures. She could feel the tears falling faster as she watched the girl dance around her. The girl's face was beautiful despite the blood that dripped from her face and hands. She held the image of her brother's crestfallen head in her palms, taunting Zara. Zara couldn't breathe, her mistake burning into her weary mind, stealing all her hope of ever living again.

"I've come to claim revenge for my brother." Said the specter. She was smiling, the blood oozing down her face. Zara began to shake, her heart beating furiously in her. She looked down to see a knife, covered in blood. It was the same one she had used to kill Cassidy. Trembling, she took it in her hands and then thrust it deep inside of her chest. She could feel the sharp pain of the knife burying itself in her broken heart and then it was over. Zara's body lay in the emerald grass of the quiet place. Anna Sophia's bloody mouth, smiling above her. Dooming her to an eternity in misery and loneliness.